Newsmax&KARL ROVE THE LOSER, AND A TWO PART REPORT ON WEALTH AND FREEDOM!

Conservative activist and author Phyllis Schlafly says the Republican Party has too often been dominated by the “establishment” instead of by the real conservative “grass-rooters” — thereby producing a “bunch of losers.”

Schlafly, 88, is the founder of the pro-family Eagle Forum whose latest book is “No Higher Power: Obama’s War on Religion.”

She sat down for an interview with Breitbart contributor Warner Todd Huston that was posted on the wizbangblog website.

Schlafly, who has attended GOP presidential conventions for decades, said she has witnessed first-hand the fight between the Republican establishment, with “the series of losers they have given us like Thomas Dewey, and the grass-rooters who wanted their own candidate.”

Ronald Reagan was the “best president of the 20th century,” she opined, but after his two terms “we lost the party again to the establishment, and they’ve given us a bunch of losers — Bob Dole, John McCain, and then Mitt Romney.”

Alluding to the infighting between Karl Rove and the tea party, Schlafly said “now we have the same battle again. It’s the establishment against the grass-rooters. The establishment likes a certain type of person who calls himself a moderate, will do what he’s told, vote the way he’s told, and not talk about certain issues. They don’t want him to talk about the social or the moral issues. They don’t even want him to talk about the national defense issues. Which is all a terrible mistake because that’s where all the money is.”

She went on: “The establishment’s voice seems to be Karl Rove, and they just gave us a bunch of losers. Rove had at least $300 million to spend on campaigns. And he only won, I think, nine of 31 races where he ran ads. A dismal result.”

4. Need for Less-Skilled Immigrants ‘Not Supported by Data’

A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies refutes claims that the United States should welcome greater numbers of less-educated immigrants to compensate for a shortage of Americans available for low-wage jobs.

Eight U.S. senators have proposed an immigration reform plan that includes increasing legal immigration in the future, and one member of the group, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has said there is “a shortage of labor” in the country. “The visas we have available just are not enough,” he told a South Carolina newspaper.

Also, labor and business leaders working with the group — known as the Gang of Eight — are promoting a program to bring in more immigrants to fill what they called in a joint statement “lesser-skilled jobs.”

But the center asserts that “the idea that there is a general labor shortage in the United States or a shortage of workers to fill lower-wage jobs that require modest levels of education is not supported by the data.”

The eight senators from seven states are Democrats Chuck Schumer of New York, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Michael Bennet of Colorado, and Dick Durbin of Illinois, and Republicans Marco Rubio of Florida, John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona, and Graham.

According to the center, the unemployment rate in 2012 for less-educated American citizens — those with no more than a high school education — averaged 11.3 percent over the year. And the broader U-6 unemployment rate, which also includes those who are out of work but have not looked for employment recently or are involuntarily working only part-time, was 19.9 percent.

“Perhaps even more striking, the employment situations in the states represented by the Gang of Eight are among the worse in the country,” according to Director of Research Steven A. Camarota and demographer Karen Zeigler at the Center for Immigration Studies.

Unemployment among less-educated people in those states averaged 12.6 percent, compared to 10.2 percent in the other 43 states. The U-6 rate in the seven states averaged 21.7 percent, compared to 18.3 percent in the other states.

“The employment figures do not support the idea that there is a shortage of workers in the United States generally, nor do they support the idea that there is a shortage of less-skilled workers,” the authors state.

They point to an “enormous pool of potential workers,” noting that last year there were 54.6 million Americans ages 18 to 65 who were not working, including 27.6 million less-educated citizens.

The authors conclude: “If through enforcement a significant fraction of illegal immigrants returned to their home countries, there would seem to be an ample supply of idle workers to replace them.

“Of course, employers might have to pay more and offer better benefits and working conditions in order to attract and retain American citizens. But improving the employment prospects and wages of the least-educated and poorest American workers can be seen as a desirable.”

5. Study: Red States Are the Most Free

A surprising new study measuring economic and personal freedom finds that conservative red states are freer than more liberal blue states — and attracting more new residents.

George Mason University’s Mercatus Center conducted the study, Freedom in the 50 States, calculating rankings according to a wide range of factors.

“We score all 50 states on over 200 policies encompassing fiscal policy, regulatory policy, and personal freedom,” the center explained.

“We weight public policies according to the estimated costs that government restrictions on freedom impose on their victims.”

Fiscal policy includes tax burden, government employment, government spending, government debt, and fiscal decentralization.

The personal freedom category focuses on victimless crime freedom, gun control freedom, civil liberties, and freedom relating to a variety of topics including tobacco, alcohol, marriage, and gambling.

The overall freedom ranking was determined by combining scores for the three major categories.

The five states with the highest ranking for freedom are, in order, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma. Only New Hampshire voted for President Obama in the 2012 election.

The state with the lowest ranking for freedom is New York, followed by California, New Jersey, Hawaii, and Rhode Island. All five states voted for Obama in 2012.

Alaska scored the highest for personal freedom, South Dakota for economic freedom, Indiana for regulatory freedom, Texas for labor market freedom, and Nevada for civil liberties. California scored lowest in three of those categories.

The study also compared its freedom rankings to population shifts and income growth, and found that the freer states performed better on both fronts than did less-free states.

It found a strong correlation between freedom and migration, “which means that Americans are gravitating toward states that have less-intrusive governments,” Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) points out in an article about the study.

William Ruger, a political scientist at Texas State University and a co-author of the study, said: “People are voting for places with greater freedom,” adding that “if you have economic freedom you will have economic growth.”

IBD observes that the study’s findings “call into question” assertions Obama made during the 2012 campaign that tax cuts and deregulation won’t produce growth and prosperity.